1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to sheet packages having paper (sheets) enclosed therein for use in image forming apparatus, such as printers or copying machines, and to sheet feeders for use with the sheet package.
2. Description of the Related Art
For example, the sheet for use in heat transfer printers is synthetic paper having a resin coating over one surface thereof. Accordingly, it is required that the surface of each sheet be held out of contact with the hand to the greatest possible extent and that such sheets be set in the printer with the surface of the sheet oriented properly. For this purpose, sheets are generally enclosed in a package and bear a marker indicating the rear side of the sheet.
When the sheets are taken out of the package and placed into the paper cassette of a printer or the like, the hand is likely to touch the resin coating of the sheet since the sheets are handled manually. Further in the case where characters are printed on the rear side of the sheet as a marker indicating the rear side, the rear side is not usable and therefore reduces the usefulness of the sheet.
In view of the above situation, it has been proposed to use the package itself as a disposable paper cassette (Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 60-15331). However, use of disposable paper cassettes gives rise to a cost problem.